Wall Street Executives Discover Tiny Part of Brooklyn

Today's breathless ode to the Brooklyn zeitgeist comes from The New York Daily News, which describes a six block stretch of Brooklyn Heights as the new real estate candy to "Wall Street execs." There goes the neighborhood. These execs are apparently gobbling up brownstones, despite costs of $10 or $11 or even $20 million. Hey, what's a little money to a Wall Street exec in these troubling economic times?

Does this herald a new era in Brooklyn? Let's call it the post-post-artisanal age. And with it, let's ask the question: If the wealthy hedge-funders we moved to Brooklyn to get away from have now moved to Brooklyn, where are we to go? Back to Manhattan?

As for what makes Brooklyn, specifically, Columbia Heights, the "city’s off-the-radar Millionaires Row" (not so off-the-radar, any longer): It's the views, of course. And the anonymity, until The Daily News blows up your spot. It also boasts famous (for Wall Street) neighbors like Goldman Sachs' Tim Ingrassia and it's safe. Also, Norman Mailer used to live there. Obama once visited the former home of writer and literary agent Nina Collins for a fundraiser. As The Daily News' Simone Weichselbaum writes:

“Brooklyn was always considered a poor step child to Manhattan, but now it is really coming into its own,” said lawyer Cal Crary, who sold the house to Collins and her hedge fund manager hubby Marek Fludzinski for $8.9 million.

News reports are focusing on the Germanwings pilot's possible depression, following a familiar script in the wake of mass killings. But the evidence shows violence is extremely rare among the mentally ill.